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Month: December 2013

After 20 years, Yahoo! finally decided to change their logo. Sure they tweaked it a couple times, but it always looked cheap, like someone phoned it in. It was so indicative of the 90s internet companies, a time when people pointed to Yahoo!’s success as proof design didn’t matter.

Think they added the anti-aliasing some time around 2004.

Today, it looks like they took the same approach with the new logo design. Granted, they’re not minting money they way it used to, but they could have splurged a little bit.

Seriously?

I find it ironic that the current CEO of Yahoo! is given a lot of credit for the design ethos at Google (another company with a meh logo). And yet, after she left, they’re stuff is now starting to actually look designed! In fact, it looks really good. It’s looks like there may actually be some trained designers working there now.

Like this:

Good news, Hallmark has a holiday version of their mawkish “Tell Me” commercials. I used to think these commercials just pandered to a character flaw. After all, the people are needy and smug. I’m uncomfortable watching them dictate what you should say and feel.

Now I see the genius behind the ads. Hallmark is really telling me, you better get a card for that unhinged friend, spouse, parent, child, co-worker, dog groomer etc., or you’ll never hear the end of it.

If you want to know who those people are? Watch the commercials with them and see how they react. If they don’t vomit just a little in their mouth, then you probably need to get them a card.

Like this:

The market is already over-saturated with self-taught developers who don’t know what they’re doing. This article gets closer to the heart of the actual problem. Our economy would benefit from more people developing a better understanding of technology. That doesn’t equal learning how to write software.

Just as every American doesn’t need to get certified as a mechanic, but should know how to change a tire, every American should know how computer systems work in the abstract but doesn’t need to code.

Like this:

I was on a flight yesterday that had gogo inflight wifi. It’s not the first time I’ve used it, but it might be the last. It’s so slow, it’s not worth it. I was only using it for email and that was taking forever. Meantime, I grabbed this ironic screenshot from the log-in process.

Note the code letters are bigger than the “Visually Impaired” link.

I suppose this wouldn’t be so bad if I didn’t have to wait 10 minutes just to get to this point.

Like this:

The hardest job I ever had was System Engineer for Apple’s Higher Education division. It required a lot of superficial knowledge about technologies I couldn’t care less about. My boss was tough. Every time I walked by her office, she’d call me in to dress me down about something. After having my own business and managing people, I have to admit I appreciate what she must have gone through managing me.

The hard part was being unmotivated to learn things like VMS and Netware. In addition, me and the team were expected to be like our teammate. He was an incredible suck-up who had nothing better to do than study everything and patronize the rest of us. My buddy said it best. This guy was an inch deep, and a mile wide. I’ll never forget that expression.

The best job so far, was head of Creative Markets for Apple. I kid that working at Orange Julius at Eastland Mall in Bloomington was the best. It was only the easiest. I liked it because it demanded very little of a 17 year old. At that point in your life, what more could you ask?

I got to meet a lot of people doing interesting things when I worked at Apple. I loved it because I was motivated and met a lot of people doing interesting things. The biggest challenge was working for a VP with a screw loose. On the other hand. The guy who hired me for the job, Chris Gulker, was awesome. I’ll miss him. Sadly, Chris died of a brain tumor a couple years ago.

My worst job lasted only a couple days. It started out as a job at Hometown Video in Normal, IL. I worked one or two nights at the store, and the owner’s wife asked if I was interested in picking up some extra hours working on the house they were building outside of Lexington. It was huge and you could tell it was taking forever.

The owner was a fat asshole in a cowboy hat. It was menial tasks. The best part of the job was riding around on an ATV. There was a small A-frame house on the property where the owner kept a large stash of porn out in the open. They were one of those unbalanced couples. She was out of his league, and he was just a slob. I suppose they had some money, because acted like a big shot.

I might have lasted two or three days, when I realized I wasn’t getting any hours at the video store again. The job was a ruse to get people to work on the cheap. One afternoon, I drove the ATV over some freshly sprouting grass. When Boss Hog saw the treads, he lost it. I don’t recall his actual words, but he sent me home. I don’t recall if I was fired, or quit. I never showed up again.